Trenee Parker, DFS Director

Trenee Parker has spent her entire adult life as an employee of DFS. She began her career in 1995 as an intern, and began employment in 1996 when she started working in an Investigation unit in Georgetown. She then joined the newly created Weekend/Holiday unit before transferring into a Treatment unit in 1997.

Following that assignment, she worked in the Milford Adoption Unit before becoming a Treatment Unit supervisor in the Pyle Center office. Eventually, she transferred to the Adoption/Permanency unit in Milford and then became the Sussex County Assistant Regional Administrator. During her time as ARA, she was a part of the Child and Family Services Review team and helped to integrate a new unit of investigation staff when additional positions were added by the legislature.

She was appointed to the position of Deputy Director in December 2015. As the Deputy Director, Trenee focused a great deal of attention on issues involving infants with prenatal substance exposure. This work related to infants with prenatal substance exposure continued when Trenee was appointed to the position of Director by Cabinet Secretary Josette Manning in January 2018.

As a member of the Child Protection and Accountability Commission subcommittee on substance exposed infants, she was an integral part of developing State legislation, Aiden’s Law, which codifies the Federal Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. Trenee has also championed the development of a template for the Plans of Safe Care that began statewide use in 2018. Since moving into the position of Director, Trenee has helped to incorporate 30 additional staff and has been able to advance increases in technology so that all frontline staff have Smart phones and many staff have Surface Pro computers. Trenee received a B.A. from Wesley College and a M.A. from Salisbury University. She lives in Sussex County with her partner and their daughter.